Re: fatal: ambiguous message

[Eric Blake]

On 01/02/2011 11:07 AM, Bruce Korb wrote:
> On 12/31/10 08:06, Eric Blake wrote:
>>> the configure.ac file starts with this:
>>>
>>>> AC_INIT([GNU libposix],
>>>>     m4_esyscmd([./git-version-gen .tarball-version]),
>>>>     address@hidden)
>>
>> Also, you should patch configure.ac to add an additional line:
>>
>> m4_if(m4_sysval, [0], [],
>>  [m4_fatal([git-version-gen failed, please investigate])])
> 
> Hi Eric,
> 
> Per my message of seconds ago, I am sure that git-version-gen
> has finished correctly with a zero exit code.

Well, hopefully that aspect of git-version-gen gets fixed (if it hasn't
already in today's flurry of patches).  But that's an issue for
bug-gnulib, if it still exists.

>  Also, if such
> complexity is required, perhaps an autoconf macro a la:
>   AC_ESYSCMD_OK([./git-version-gen .tarball-version])
> that will error out of the command exits non-zero?

Now that's a nice idea!  I'd rather name it m4_esyscmd_ok (and a
counterpart m4_syscmd_ok), since it ties closely to m4_esyscmd, but the
idea of having a syntactic sugar wrapper that automatically issues a
fatal error if a child command does not complete successfully does seem
useful.  Of course, a drawback is that you'd have to require a
new-enough autoconf to use that new macro, or else provide it's
implementation as a fallback when using older autoconf.

(My autoconf time has suffered as of late due to demands from other
projects, but I hope to be able to put better time into autoconf later
this month).

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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